FIA World Touring Car Championship

I was inspired to blog about the World Touring Car Championship after a number of WTCC stars followed me on Twitter (follow @johnbmarine). I actually wanted to do an all-in-one post on touring car racing, but this post is on the World Touring Car Championship, around since 1987 and sanctioned by the Federacion International d' Automobile (FIA). I am really unsure how I began to follow the WTCC. But to me, as much as F1 represents the pinnacle of technology and ultra-sophisticated racing; the FIA World Touring Car Championship represents the very best of production-based racing. The cars are very sophisticated in their performance and capabilities, but their performance figures are not overblown from their road-going counterparts like DTM or the Australian V8 Supercar Series. The only real game series that has featured a majority This blog post is mostly a digest of as much as I know about the FIA World Touring Car Championship.

FIA WTCC: The Cars.

Many of the vehicles featured in the championship are not sold in the United States (speaking from an American standpoint). The of-the-moment car from my watching of today's WTCC is the Chevrolet Cruze. Other vehicles from other makers are also quite competitive. These include the likes of SEAT, Honda, BMW, and other makes. What I love about the World Touring Car Championship is the intense racing action featuring production-based everyday cars. That really makes most touring car series fun to begin with. Again- these are sophisticated and purpose-built race cars which have specifications very close to the road-going model they represent. You don't have race cars with overblown performance figures compared to the road-going cars they represent. Since a majority of these cars are based on road-going models, many of the cars are front-wheel drive. Only the BMWs make up the rear-wheel drive cars to the best of my knowledge in today's WTCC.

FIA WTCC: The Tracks/Races.

The FIA World Touring Car Championship goes all around the world to some of the finest race tracks as well as some of the most tricky touring car tracks. They will race on world-renowned courses like Monza and Zolder, and they even race on tough street courses like Macau. Each race run at each venue is done in a dual-race format usually lasting about maybe 20 minutes each. The FIA World Touring Car Championship races just about all over the world.

As of the date of this initial blog post (and to my surprise), the WTCC will be racing for the first time at Sears Point (the track I've always known as Sears Point that was once called Infineon Raceway) in Sonoma, CA, USA. I'd be interested to see the WTCC race in Canada as well. Maybe they can run a round at Circuit de Gilles Villeneuve or the beautiful Circuit Mont-Tremblant. The series does race in Africa in Marrakech, Morocco. Besides that track, Kyalami would be great. Bathurst would be awesome to race in today's WTCC. But if they want to take on Australia, other good venues besides Bathurst include Philip Island, Eastern Creek, Queensland, or even Hidden Valley. Or, they may want to give New Zealand a go and race at tracks like Taupo Motorsports Park or Teretonga Park Raceway.

FIA WTCC: Drivers.

Among racers past and present, I have the most respect for drivers like Alain Menu, Andy Priaulx, and Yvan Muller among others. I also have respect for Tom Coronel. Many of the racers that compete in this series are world-class drivers with immense talent.

What is the WTCC Like?

So what is the FIA World Touring Car Championship like? This video will tell you all you need to know about this great racing series (click on the link if you can't view Flash video):


^ "2011 FIA World Touring Car Championship | WTCC | Race Season Review"

For you gamers out there, about the only real game that has showcased the cars from the WTCC are from the RACE series of games from SimBin. So you can go play that game to get your virtual fill of WTCC touring car racing. There is even a WTCC mod being worked on for rFactor as of now. If and when that mod is finished, I'll update this blog post with a link to the finished product.





This was not meant to be a fully-detailed post. It was basically sort of a "thank you" post for the FIA World Touring Car Championship folk on Twitter for following me on Twitter. I needed to show that I am aware of and am a fan of the WTCC. So therefore, I created this post. I hope you enjoyed this post. If you want to learn more about the FIA World Touring Car Championship or to get social with the FIA WTCC, here are some links for you:

• FIA World Touring Car Championship (official)
• FIA World Touring Car Championship Facebook fan page
• Follow the FIA WTCC on Twitter!
• FIA World Touring Car Championship (Wikipedia)

Thank you for reading!

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